EmployWise: Skills required for achieving career goals

Skill is an ability to accomplish complex activities by incorporating knowledge based ideas. The skillset possessed by an employee is an essential prerequisite before grasping a responsible position in an organization. However, the skills necessary for success are often not included in academic curriculums but are required to be nurtured through individual practical implementations.

Before getting a hold of the work, it is essential to acquire and maintain skills that provide a platform to solve the problems by saving money and time.

There is a huge skill gap between educationally acquired knowledge and the industrial requirements expected from an individual at the workplace. Moreover, in the current scenario of India’s rapidly evolving and rising economy a huge resource of skilled people are required to sustain its future economic ambitions. What so ever organizations serve as a platform that provides skills with which an individual can build and develop skills necessary to be successful.

• The current industrial environment requires making use of formally educated young generation of India’s workforce by providing them on job and practical training. Fortunately, in the rapidly evolving industrial environment organizations serve as the base for acquiring practically usable knowledge. The correct career skills can be developed by identifying and following the patterns of skill implementations in the organizations.
• New technologies are being implemented consistently to enhance the market competency levels of the organizations. In order to be competent and productive, it has become mandatory for each employee to update their skill levels with the practical knowledge on latest technologies. Hence, acquiring knowledge in a consistently evolving organizational environment fueled by technological innovations gives an edge to the employees for succeeding further with every new change.
• Improvising individual intelligence with the help of knowledge should be the passion of each employee who aspires to be successful in an organizational environment. The global economic structure is getting more dependent on intelligent mental efforts rather than the mere physical hard work. Hence, it is necessary for the working individuals to concentrate more on structuring their intelligence levels synchronized with technological advancements.

The collaborative effort of organizational leaders and employees can truly result in making the work environment a breeding ground for people seeking success in achieving their career goals. As a highly populated nation, India can only succeed as an economic giant in the global market when evolution of individual intelligence and an knowledge seeking work environment is encouraged with an all round effort.

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EmployWise: Tips for providing mandatory HR training

Training for HR is mandatory in every company and it is important to educate the managers and supervisors on certain policy and procedures as well as legal matters.

Supposedly we take employee harassment of any sort as an example, usually people might hesitate or find it awkward to be a part of harassment related training session for a couple of hours, but then it depends on the trainer to do his/her homework well and come prepared with some real-life experiences to share. The point, which is to be kept in focus, is that for such unconventional topics the message has to be conveyed in a way different from usual training sessions.            

The following tips if followed can make the trainings on complex though important topics much more effective:

Trainings made alive through multi media: Instead of reading out the policies from a book, make them interesting through a blend of visual and multimedia aid. It is important to put the message across especially in trainings related to harassment, FMLA, ADA laws etc.

Real life examples of appropriate action: Real life examples leave a long lasting impact on the attendees; therefore to make the training effective such examples should be narrated more often. Showing the severe consequences of unacceptable behavior is critical to set an example amongst the employees. Moreover the trainer/front line manager should be able to portray that right steps were taken as an employer in the real life example they are stating.

Engage experienced trainers: Bring in people in-house or external with loads of experience to share experiences from their past work life. It’s better to train on topics that are crucial before waiting for them to become mandatory.

Apart from that the organisations can focus on arranging follow-up classes and provide handbooks with detailed policies and procedures for all attending the training. Such efforts taken by the employers depict the seriousness that they are putting in to make the employees aware of the necessary laws and regulations which influences the employees to give a respectable response

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EmployWise: Save Time & Energy with Good Prioritizing Skills

Prioritizing tasks is an important skill that not only helps to focus what is important, but also allows doing tasks on time with more attention and energy. For dealing with time management problems, prioritizing can facilitate in making better use of time, along with eliminating gaps in productivity. With this skill, you need not to work faster, but schedule your time in a way that you can dedicate time for various activities.

The 80/20 Rule...

When we are overburdened with work, we are not able to dedicate time and energy to all of them. At times we are even short of resources, which start hampering the work and results in several things left undone. Prioritizing is a way that helps solve all these problems and reduce frustration.

Prioritizing all the tasks in a way that this 20% contribution from our activities is properly scheduled can help us spend more time with family and produce better value outputs. In addition to this, it will help us understand what is important and what is urgent.

Prioritizing Tasks

For prioritizing skills in a useful manner, you should be able to differentiate your work as important and urgent. To prioritize work as important, you should focus on work that provides value, think for long term and one should have a clear vision. Rather than wasting time on different things, one should understand that first things always come first.

Usually when the tasks are given they all seem urgent and important, but in fact, most of the urgent activities that keep us involved are not really important for the long run. Tasks should be prioritized in such a way that they help us achieve long-term goals or may have long-term consequences.

Therefore, Good prioritizing skills facilitates everyone to finish the urgent tasks as soon as possible that may cause a problem if not taken care at time. These skills always prove helpful in saving time and energy and also reward us in the long run.

EmployWise is an Online HR Software for the life-cycle of an employee including Leave and Attendance software, Employee Database, Travel and Expense Management. Start Your Free Trial for 30 Days

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EmployWise: How Corporate Recruiters Can Prop-Up Talent Management?

Talent management is an important section that is increasingly gaining attention and is helping organizations to bring management initiatives and human resources together. These days, companies utilize different types of talent management schemes so as to develop high potential employees. But only 56% organizations are able to rate their talent management activities as effective, while others are experiencing a downturn in talent management.

The fact is that organizations are not successfully integrating their succession planning and talent with their strategic business plans. Sometimes, it can be due to disconnect in the hiring process between hiring manager and recruiters. But companies need to understand that talent management should always be seen as a long-term process, in order to achieve success.

Role of Corporate Recruiters in Talent Management

Corporate Recruiters can always act as a bridge between cultural changes and employees. They tend to have a better understanding about the corporate culture and new employee’s expectations in relation to work culture.

For example, when a new employee experiences a change of culture, recruiters can help the new employees by managing their expectations as per the organizational culture. At the same time, they can also have a discussion with the managers to make them aware of how they can assist the new team members and facilitate them in making cultural adjustments. This kind of proactive behavior can always help organizations to manage their talent pool for a longer time span.

In addition to cultural adjustments, job and career expectations in the new employees also raise issues, which sometimes affect talent management schemes. In such scenarios, recruiters can guide the new team members to be flexible and talk to managers regarding highlighting the job role to the employees.

This way, new members will have the idea of how their job role will be different in future as compared to now. Managers will also be able to develop and nurture their team members, thus managing the talent pool effectively.

EmployWise is a complete Human Resource Management system for the life-cycle of an employee including Leave and Attendance software, Employee Database, Travel and Expense Management. Start Your Free Trial for 30 Days

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Human Resource Management Software: its multiple benefits

Human resource management is being considered as one of the prime aspects of business administration these days because satisfied employees are the assets of a business in its growth and sustenance. Human Resource Management Software is a tool for streamlining almost all HR activities in an organization with multifaceted functionalities.

As a whole, online HR Software works more vividly than a mere online repository presently. With research and constant development, HRM software is now rendering its role as a centralized resource of updated and multifunctional employee data so that with its help data analysis of HR operation gets easier as well as strategic talent decisions and general business efficiency and performance gets abruptly improved. Let’s check here how this Online HR Software works.

HRMS solutions

HRMS stands for Human Resource management solution and it is an all-encompassing responsibility including employee details data, leave and attendance data, records of compensation and benefits, hiring record, etc. HRM software keeps track of all these issues and maintains a repository of employee tracking program, which can be considered as authentic performance appraisal tool for extracting realistic HRMS solutions.

Performance Management System

Performance management system is a critical issue of calculating incentive and payroll management. This performance analysis support program helps in offering employee benefits which is reimbursed based on individual performance. The process includes setting up goals, creating reviews, providing feedback and offering due appraisal and offering training for all employees under one system: nowadays a Human Resource Management Software manages the entire analysis and extracts best and accurate data related to performance management.

Employee Management System

                                                              

Employee management system is the backbone of HR management of a company and it has multiple key areas. Some of the premium responsibilities of business management are taken care of like recruitment programs, employee compensation and benefits program, employee welfare programs, compensation and benefits, etc. with the help of human resource management software analysis.

HRIS Management

HRM software deals with multiple activities like payroll administration, time and attendance module, benefits administration module, etc. for supporting efficient and employee supportive HR Management implementation. HRIS software not only takes care of business data development/analysis but also takes due care of data displaying employee growth and sustenance rate of employees in an organization. Furthermore this software system keeps coordination with insurance, compensation, profit sharing and retirement related issues in an organization.

If you are looking for streamlining the HR management of your company without any major man power recruitment, the most compatible and cost effective solution is using Employwise: this HRM software will keep your human resource management flawless, efficient, and best result oriented.

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EmployWise: Altering Performance Management into a Process of Nurturing Talent

Performance management and nurturing talent are both very critical aspects for an organization’s quality of performance and growth. The term performance management can be defined as the specific approach for getting successful results in organizations by improving the capabilities and skill set of the individuals.

However, the process of performance management in the current business environment does not solve the requirements of the current market trends. Basically, performance management is all about managing the workforce as a whole for ensuring maximum output for the organizations. The most critical part this procedure lags is the effort for nurturing of individual talent.

There are reasons why performance management procedure doesn’t prove to be fruitful in today’s business environment and one of the main reasons is the consistent transformation of the industrial workforce into knowledge workforce. The process of performance management only follows one way which has been decided upon by the management but individual nurturing provides room for multiple ways to approach various organizational situations. Moreover, the performance management is only directed upon maximizing product output and does not concentrate on competitive environment. Lack of creativity, collaboration, self-motivation and autonomy over important decisions are some other areas where the idea of management directed performance management process fails in the current market.

Practical Ways for transforming Performance Management into Talent Development

1. Organizations need to rethink on their limited ways of nurturing talents which is executed once a while. In the current environment knowledge enabled workforce and tasks, talent nurturing should be of highest priority and newer executable ideas should be repeatedly implemented in close intervals of time.
2. Encouragement and motivation are the two important factors for allowing existing talents to nurture within the organization. However, these two factors are successfully established when employees are allowed to have enough autonomy to express their new ideas in multiple dimensions of organizational work.
3. When it comes to enabling the workforce to function in a qualitative manner, training them with new arriving skills and creating an environment that allows them to share their knowledge is very essential. Organizations must invest with a strategic and ambitious manner in improving the training structures and communication channels between the employees.
4. Encouraging employees to play a proactive role in the organizations should be supported by a perfect reviewing of the talent and planning succession of positions accordingly. An effective and organized way of judging the eligible talent for various organizational roles encourages the whole workforce to dedicate healthy amount of their time in developing their knowledge based skill consistently.

Adding value to the ways that an organization functions depends upon how well the environment to nurture the employee talent is leveraged. Additionally, deserving talent should be awarded with more responsible positions and allowed to share their new and creative ideas consistently. An organization can only be successful when there is a steady flow of knowledge based talent who find its work environment further more useful to evolve with their skills.

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EmployWise: RIP Best Practices?

In a world dominated by Facebook and LinkedIn, there is no doubt that the Human Resource department, as we know it, needs to evolve. HR mainly comprises of two important objectives – personnel management and business execution. Personnel management has become completely automated, as a result of which, the services that needed face-to-face interactions earlier are now online anywhere and anytime thanks to web-based HRMS which offers ‘self-service tools’. Business execution has also become a round-the-year continuous process as it is easy to map individual goals and align it with the company’s strategic goals with the help of an effective employee management system.

HR, as we know it, is dying a slow death? No instead, it is slowly becoming a more powerful, significant and strategic unit for any company as the various processes are getting streamlined and updated data is available to the HR manager 24/7 for informed decision-making process to drive employee as well as company growth.

High-performing companies can now free their Human Resource team from transactional functions to focus on processes that support business execution like re-planning company goals, organization design, career progression, succession planning and goal alignment. These areas have been traditionally neglected in India till now but with the benefit of HR software, managers can accurately plan the training, development and coaching activities. They will also get more time to monitor employees through continuous activities and three sixty degrees feedback which can assist in identifying the right candidates for rewards and promotions.

One of my previous blogs dealt with the importance of applying technology in HR functions and I will say it again- “Technology has made it impossible for the Human Resource Manager to function the same way it did ten years back”. But technology in itself is not enough. It needs to be driven by the HR manager to make it more relevant and effective. Chuck Palahnuik, American journalist, once said, “right now, getting killed would be redundant”. I don’t know about him but it certainly holds true for HR in India right now.

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EmployWise - Nothing suits me like a suit!

While many companies are turning to a more relaxed, casual work environment, a majority of companies in India have a strict dress code policy although there is very little employee acceptability for such enforced rules. Clothes have a way of reflecting a person’s personality traits and at the same time there is a definite psychological influence on the wearer as well as the audience.

Harvey Specter and Don Draper; two powerful men with good looks and important clients have a knack for closing business deals by their sheer presence. What else do they have in common? A love for suits! The two best dressed men of our times have a fetish for impeccable designer suits and not just because the dress code is so. Even Barney Stintson, America’s favorite lady killer chose his suit over a hot girl. Suits, the epitome of power dressing symbolizes confidence, success and ambition, all at one go.  In India, power dressing is reserved for once-in-a-month events like big-client meetings, conferences and ofcourse job interviews.

While many companies are turning to a more relaxed, casual work environment, a majority of companies in India have a strict dress code policy although there is very little employee acceptability for such enforced rules. Clothes have a way of reflecting a person’s personality traits and at the same time there is a definite psychological influence on the wearer as well as the audience.

Appropriate dress codes are important in a workplace as they reflect the company’s intention to stay focused on serious about their business. A compulsory dress code helps in enhancing and maintaining the company’s public perception and image.  This holds true especially when there is a lot of consumer interface like in banks, educational institutes, retail or consultancies. There is no direct link between dress code and productivity, but surveys point to the fact that casual clothes have a negative influence on the employee’s attitude and energy level. Many firms in India are flexible in their formal dress code attire and do not insist on female employees wearing suits, trousers and shirt or formal skirts. Indian formals (i.e sari and kurti) are also equally acceptable as long as they are not accessorized.. Quite a few firms in India even give out extremely detailed dress codes defining the appropriate heel size for shoes, necktie style or the acceptable jewelry designs. These restrictive policies do not work well in India as employees refuse to accept these given parameters most of the time. 

To avoid the hornet’s nest many companies just ask their employees to ‘dress professionally’. Then there are firms that encourage their employees’ uniqueness by simply asking them to ‘wear something’ like Google India does. Infact until a few years ago, employees of IT firms, dotcoms and even advertising firms could walk in to the office in tank tops, shorts and flip-flops. While such casual clothing attitude does encourage informality and a heightened level of casualness, employers should be proactive in creating and circulating a list of non-acceptable cloth items also. Specific dress code standards should be set up so that employees can differentiate between relaxed, casual and informal dressing styles. Also, the employer needs to lay equal stress on neatness and orderliness as things like unpolished shoes, dirty nails, uncombed hair are also a big no-no in the work-place but in India these things are pointedly ignored as they are too personal in nature.   

It is imperative to have a definite dress code in the office so that employees know what is expected from them and what is not acceptable. It should not follow a specific fashion trend but instead focus on the business environment as it should be appropriate. The employer needs to remember that the employees need to be comfortable in what they wear or productivity will suffer.

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EmployWise: Mobilizing Working Possibilities

A desire for increased productivity and a more connected company culture has prompted companies like Yahoo!, Best Buy, Bank of America and Zappos to scale back their flexible work arrangements. 

A decision like this would definitely impact the women workforce, but it is naive to believe that it would have no impact on today’s aspirational men. In fact the report presents some findings which actually expound all these beliefs and more.

I was going through Harvard Business Review last week when I came across this article by Anna Beninger and Nancy Carter of the Catalyst research team. Catalyst is an international nonprofit organization with an aim to expand opportunities for women and create more inclusive workplaces.

The finding from their latest report - Catalyst's flexibility research couldn’t have come at a better time. A desire for increased productivity and a more connected company culture has prompted companies like Yahoo!, Best Buy, Bank of America and Zappos to scale back their flexible work arrangements. 

A decision like this would definitely impact the women workforce, but it is naive to believe that it would have no impact on today’s aspirational men. In fact the report presents some findings which actually expound all these beliefs and more. Catalyst quizzed 726 MBA graduates around the world working full-time in both for-profit and non-profit firms across industries —about their experiences with, and perceptions of, flexible working arrangements. The responses were astounding. 81 percent of those surveyed reported that they were currently working at a firm that offers flexible work arrangements of some kind. In addition to telecommuting, this includes flexible arrival or departure, flexi time, compressed work weeks, reduced work/part-time, and job sharing. Flexible work options are in fact the rule, and not the exception, at organizations today. Their research also revealed that women and men were using flexible work options like flexi time and flexible arrival and departure to the same extent throughout their careers.

However, the study did confirm that women were significantly more likely than men to telecommute i.e. work outside of the office over the course of their careers. So while men and women are equally likely to use some flexi work options, women are more likely to telecommute. But women pay for that. Lack of access to flexible working arrangements damages high potential employees' career aspirations, and is especially harmful to women's aspirations, thus impacting the number of women raising their hands for stretch assignments and promotions. The report also discovered that women working at a firm without flexi work options were more likely to downsize their aspirations. According to Catalyst, flexibility is not just about being flexible with time. It is also about being strategic, which requires employers and employees to be open and creative in questioning the process of how work should be done, and why.

In a scenario where virtual meeting is possible from any place, any time, it is hard to imagine a company doing away with work-from-home. Needless to say, offering flexible working arrangements is critical for organizations intending to maximize their talent pool with high potential employees and become employers of choice. In fact a 2011 study by nonprofit Human Resources Association World at Work found that companies with stronger cultures of flexibility experienced lower turnover and increased employee satisfaction, motivation and engagement. 

Employwise is a complete HR System for the life-cycle of an employee including Leave and Attendance software, Employee Database, Travel and Expense Management. Start your free trial for 30 days....

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Keep Rewarding and Benefiting!

Performance management is no longer an annual event. It has become a continuous project, with or without performance management software. The need to evaluate employees regularly especially in terms of goal achievement has become vital for all companies be it big or small. Mentoring is also an integral part of any employee’s development and performance management plays a very important role in gauging the need and extent for coaching and guidance. However, performance management in India is still in an evolutionary stage facing multitudes of challenges.

One of the reasons for this is ineffective communication. Once the employees’ performance review against set goals is completed, the measurements and relevant feedback needs to be shared with the employees in a transparent manner so that there is a scope for improvement in the future. Instead of an annual performance review, feedback should be given on a monthly basis. At the same time, negative feedback should not be delayed but delivered simultaneously. Withholding such information leads to distrust and lowers confidence.

Often poor measurement metrics are developed and while goals are set, no relevant measure is put in place. Performance metrics should be chosen keeping in mind the company structure. Irrelevant mapping can result in distorted results. Also, care should be taken while analyzing the data as any error can disrupt the functioning of the program. Similarly, the old system of keeping scorecards on employees for targets achieved has to go as it has no relevance in the current scenario.

Performance management system also lacks alignment between individual performance, departmental performance and organizational goals.  The gap between companies’ strategic planning and performance review is also a challenge. Strategic planning focuses more on the process and implementation while almost no thought is given towards the employees’ performance and development planning. Organizations need to adjust their goal setting and planning after assessing the employees’ performance.

Adopting performance management as part of the company policies is critical for both the employees and the management. Often, it is not taken seriously by the employees which results in misplaced expectations by the management. Lack of commitment by the management also impacts the delivery of an effective performance management system.

Employee engagement also plays a pivotal role in performance management. The year round process should be conversational and timely and employees should be able to solicit information and feedback from anyone in the hierarchy, making the interface more open. Activities such as team lunch, family days, birthday celebrations, competitions and motivational emails are some of the other ways in which employee engagement can be fostered. Incentivizing top performers without penalizing non-performers can be another way to ensure full employee co-operation. Rewards could be in form of public acknowledgement, financial inducement, educational break, promotion or even a vacation. 

In case of India, there is an urgent need to reduce the element of favoritism and biasness during the performance review. Issues like these should be addressed before it puts a dent on employee morale and compromises the performance completely.

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